DISCLAIMER: NOT OURS! Joint fic with Bethyboo97 in answer to the Friday 13th and story behind Sandra's shark mug challenges, enjoy any review would be lovely! :)

She wasn't a superstitious person which was why Friday 13th of meant nothing to her, she never saw the point and to be quite honest she found it funny to see other people getting so worried over a date. All of this being true meant that when she stepped out of the house to see a black cat sat on her car, she never thought twice about it. The cat refused to move as she walked closer to her car, it didn't move when the car made a noise in reaction to being unlocked, it wasn't until she physically shooed it that the black cat jumped down from the bonnet of her car.

The engine refused to start as she put the keys in her ignition, before removing them and trying again, which didn't seem to make a difference no matter how many times she tried it.

"Great." Sandra sighed as she realised that her car wasn't going to start, this just wasn't going to be her lucky day but that had nothing to do with the fact it was Friday 13th.

"Gerry are you in the office yet?" Sandra asked desperately as Gerry answered the phone.

"Yeah, where are you?" Gerry asked her.

"At home, my cars broken down. I was going to ask if you'd give me a lift but if you're already in the office then it's pointless. I'll just walk."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah I'll be in as soon as I can."

"Okay, you might want to try and walk quickly because Strickland's looking for you and he doesn't look happy."

"Does he ever?!" Sandra laughed. "See you soon." She was still laughing at her own joke when she put the phone back in her bag and started on her walk into the office.

After nearly a 20 minute walk she was nearly at the office, but the pavement she was now walking on was in serious need of being resurfaced, the cracks in the pavement were massive and practically unavoidable for even the most cautious of people. But being 20 past 9 in the morning, she was still half asleep and the long walk was only adding to the exhausted feeling, tripping in a crack was inevitable and soon it happened. Keeping her balance and trying to look composed wasn't even an option because he shoes seemed to have different ideas, the slight snapping noise and then her falling was the tell tell sign that the heel on one of her boots had snapped. She could have coped with this had no one else seen and if it had been a normal morning at this time then no one would have, unfortunately this morning there were builders working on a café. Their laughs could be heard from the other side of the road, where Sandra stood, which only added to her rapidly declining mood and to top it all off when she got to the met building which she was now stood in front of she had to deal with Strickland who according to Gerry was in a bad mood.

"Sandra…" She thought she could get in and get a coffee down her before having to deal with Strickland but as he seemed to have been sat in reception waiting for her she had no choice in the matter. "Where have you been?"

"Car broke down and then I had to walk in and my shoes broke so whatever this is can it wait until I've been down to the office and changed into my shoes I have down there?"

"Fine, yes yes, I want you in my office as soon as you've done that though." Strickland told her. Changing her shoes would take her a couple of minutes tops so she had no time to chat to her team to find out what this particular lecture might be about.

Having left her office after changing her shoes and having been laughed at by Gerry by the story of her morning she was even an even worse mood by the time she reached Strickland's office.

"Sir…" Sandra smiled overly politely.

"Sandra, we've had a complaint from David Harrison about the use of his DNA in the Long case."

"What about the Long case?"

"He said his DNA was used without his permission."

"What?!" Sandra said shocked at how anyone had found out about that.

"Sandra I know the boys aren't all for doing things by the book but I expected you would. It seems like the boys have had rather the wrong impact on you." Strickland shouted.
"It won't happen again."

"You damn right it won't." Strickland told her sternly before sighing. "You do realise that Harrison wants an investigation into this?"

"Surely people will think he's just doing this because he's been charged with 4 rapes?"

"Well that's how we'll paint it if it gets to that but don't put me in this situation again."

"Sorry sir." Sandra told him before she left his office and returned to her own.

As she walked into her basement office where two of her three boys where unsurprisingly doing nothing, she threw her bag to the sofa in the corner of the room but instead of that it hit the table and knocked over some piles of paper next to where Brian was sat.

"MY PILES!" Brian shouted as he watched the paper tumble to the ground.

"Sorry." Sandra tried before carrying on her journey to her secluded office, already this morning her car had broken down, she'd broken the heels on her new shoes, been shouted at by her boss and upset Brian. None of which was particularly good for someone who didn't believe in all the superstition

She had decided rather than brave the outside office, from which she could hear shouting, that until lunch time she'd stay in her own little office where the likely hood of anything else going wrong was slim.